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Authors: Iris Murdoch

BOOK: A Fairly Honourable Defeat
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Morgan stooped to pull it out. She remembered the clasp had broken and Tallis had said he’d mend it. He liked mending things for her. She recalled the scene in the kitchen. Tallis’s pleased look as he examined the clasp. He hung the necklace on a hook on the dresser and said he would get some Araldite at the ironmongers and mend it. That must have been the evening when she told him she was going to America. The necklace was somehow associated with her departure. She had been a little defiant, Tallis rather silent. They must have both known it was an important step. She left England soon after. And he had not mended the necklace. She avoided looking at him now, knowing that his head was still bent. She glanced at her watch but the dial was hazy. ‘I must keep an eye on the time.’
‘Come into the kitchen for a minute,’ said Tallis.
Morgan blinked hard, dropped the necklace into the mess of moth-eaten woollies, and followed him. Only when she had entered the kitchen and heard the door close behind her did she suddenly feel menaced. She tried the little cough again, but this time it made her feel she was going to be sick. Bitterness rose in her throat.
Tallis very deliberately set the table between them once more. He was looking less pale now and Morgan saw how tired and how dirty he looked. The scanty ginger hair was jagged and uncombed. He wore a shapeless light blue jersey with a crumpled collar and a lot of stains down the front, and rather limp damp-looking grey trousers, baggy at the knees. The big light brown eyes stared at her, not accusingly, but with a kind of amazement. He seemed to be trembling slightly. Morgan avoided looking at the eyes or the mouth. She turned her head, feeling his gaze like a physical ray beating upon her cheek. She leaned back against the dresser. ‘Well?’
‘I think I should be saying “Well?”,’ said Tallis. ‘Are you coming back to me, or are you just visiting?’
Morgan swallowed the bitterness. Some darkness seemed to be hovering just above her head. She said, ‘I didn’t imagine you’d want me to come back.’ She concentrated her attention upon some dirty milk bottles upon the window sill.
‘Of course I want you to come back.’
‘Why “of course”? It’s not simple. It’s certainly not simple for me.’
‘You’re not still with—?’
‘No, that’s over.’
‘Then it’s over, it’s past.’
‘You mean you don’t care?’ she said.
Tallis was silent for a moment. ‘Don’t be a bloody idiot, Morgan. Here you are back again. That’s the main thing, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Morgan. Then she felt, I am not only vile, I’m vulgar. Of course I understand him. He is talking beautiful plain sense and, suddenly, it could be simple. But I won’t let it be. I must act a part, play a scene, to preserve myself, I’ve got to. I ought to show some genuine emotion now, I feel sick enough. I ought to cry. But I won’t. God, I’m a hollow thing.
‘Please don’t—just argue,’ said Tallis. ‘It doesn’t matter about the argument. There is no argument.’
‘I can’t simply come back,’ said Morgan. ‘It doesn’t make any sense to me.’
‘You mean something else has got to happen first?’
‘No, no—’
‘I know this house is ghastly. But we could soon clean it up. With you back I’d want to. Everything would be different.’
Morgan imagined herself scrubbing the kitchen floor. Well, why not? ‘Oh, don’t be so
irrelevant,
’ she said. She took a quick glance at him and saw the small mouth quivering. She thought, I must get away, enough, enough, enough.
‘Morgan,
think.
’
‘I am thinking. There’s no use in my coming back. I should only run away again. It would all end in tears.’
‘We are in tears anyway.’ The voice was firm enough.
‘You may be,’ said Morgan. She felt exasperated, stronger. ‘But I’m not. I’ve had a wonderful adventurous time these last two years. I’ve really lived. And I’m going to go on having a wonderful adventurous time. I’m not going into any more cages. We ought never to have got married, you and I, as you very well know. We are totally unsuited to each other. I can’t imagine how or why it ever happened. It was a mistake. We never shared our deepest thoughts. I realize that, now that I know myself a good deal better. I imagined I loved you. I didn’t really. Least said soonest mended.’
‘Of course you loved me. And you love me. And I—’
‘Oh, stop it, please. Could you lend me a bag to put those notebooks into? A paper bag will do so long as it’s a fairly strong one.’
Tallis grubbed about under the sink and produced a crumpled paper bag with a string handle. He took the notebooks from the table and put them into the bag. He said, ‘Morgan, I beg you—’
‘And there’s another thing,’ she said hastily. ‘I took all that money out of the bank.’
He stared at her and she looked away.
‘I took the money, your money as well as my money, out of the bank. Or didn’t you notice?’
‘Yes, I noticed.’
‘I’d like to pay you something now. You’ll accept it? Well, why shouldn’t you, it’s your money.’ She fumbled with her handbag. When the cheque book was in her hand she hesitated. She wrote a cheque for a hundred pounds and sighed deeply. ‘Here’s a hundred pounds. I’ll pay you the rest later on.’ She threw the cheque onto the table.
Tallis picked it up and thrust it unfolded into his trousers pocket. ‘Thanks.’
He stood staring at her and now she could not avoid those eyes. No accusation, but the look was hard to bear. She thought, Tallis is like radium. Too much exposure to him damages the tissues. She became aware of a faint strange booming sound. Perhaps it was just the eternal torment of London’s traffic which she had just become aware of. Perhaps it was the blood beating in her ears. Perhaps—
‘Aunt Morgan!’
Peter had pushed open the kitchen door.
‘Oh Peter,
Peter!
’ Morgan’s relief was intense.
Peter was wearing tight black trousers and a clean open-necked white shirt. He had the air of a young commander.
‘How marvellous, you’re back, you’re back!’ He rushed at her and they embraced higgledy piggledy, laughing and jostling.
‘Peter, you’re so grown up, so handsome, so
tall.
I’m terribly glad to see you!’
‘Gosh, Aunt Morgan, you look stunning! I say, I’m sorry to butt in.’
Peter was a good head taller than Tallis. Morgan found herself confusedly delighted by his sheer tallness, mingled with her relief at the ending of her
tête-à-tête
with her husband. Peter’s plump face was rosy and shiny, his long abundant blond hair glowed in the sunshiny air, he shone with health and youth. He was trying to apologize while laughing with pleasure.
‘That’s all right, I was just going,’ said Morgan. She picked up the paper bag. ‘Will you see me along the road, Peter? I’d love to hear all about you.’
Peter opened the kitchen door for her, still laughing and exclaiming. He took the bag out of her hand. ‘Here, let me carry that.’
‘Good—day,’ said Morgan. She had intended to say ‘Good-bye’ but choked upon it. She attempted a smile.
Tallis said nothing. He nodded his head. His face had become harder and more remote. The light brown eyes gazed in her direction without seeming to focus upon her.
Morgan raised a hand in vague salute and quickly followed Peter out of the door. With relief and now almost with joy she breathed the sunny stale air of the shabby street, she looked in wonder at the houses and the blue sky. She thought, I’ve seen him, I’ve done it, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over. I shall tell Hilda all about it over a drink. Oh God, the relief! Whatever the future might hold, whatever, when she came to have intentions and purposes again, she might intend and purpose, the primal shock was over and everything was going to be ever so much easier and nicer. A sudden sense of freedom made her feel light and unconfined as a dancing shadow. She turned, looking up into Peter’s still laughing eyes. They began to chatter incoherently to each other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
 
‘WHAT A BABY SIMON IS!’ said Rupert.
He and Axel with glasses in their hands were standing at the window of Rupert’s study, looking down at the sunlit scene in the garden. Axel stared gloomily at the slim figure of his young lover who was just climbing out of the pool. He said nothing. Hilda, dressed in a pink towelling shift, was stretched out on a blue rug on the flagstones, rubbing a sunburn lotion into her shiny brown legs. Simon looked up and waved. Rupert waved back. Axel almost imperceptibly raised his glass.
‘My God,’ said Rupert, ‘look who’s here!’
Peter and Morgan had just marched out through the French windows.
Hilda began hastily to get up, upsetting the sunburn lotion onto the rug. Simon gave a joyous cry and opened his arms. Axel moved away from the window.
‘Come on, Axel, let’s go down.’
‘I just thought I’d bring him along with me!’ said Morgan.
‘Morgan, how marvellous to see you, I’ve kept missing you. Hello, Peter,’ cried Simon.
‘Evening, Peter. Nice to see you here,’ said Rupert.
‘Where from?’ said Hilda.
‘From Tallis’s,’ said Morgan with a careless air. ‘Give me a drink, will you, someone.’
‘At once, at once,’ cried Simon. ‘I’ll get more glasses. What a bit of luck we dropped in.’
‘You saw Tallis, good, good,’ said Rupert. He smiled approvingly at Morgan, but she was not looking at him.
‘My dear—’ said Hilda, kissing Peter, who moved stiffly away, then patted her at arms’ length.
‘Drinks for all, drinks for all.’
‘Thank you, Simon, but do dry yourself a little before you embrace me! Boy, could I use a drink!’
‘Sorry, Morgan darling.’
‘Peter, could I have a word with you?’
‘Certainly, Father.’
‘Then let’s sit over here away from the others.’
‘Morgan, what happened at Tallis’s?’
‘Nothing, Hilda. I collected my notebooks.’
‘But you saw him?’
‘Yes. What’s that orange muck on the rug?’
‘Sun tan lotion.’
‘I thought somebody’d been sick. Hadn’t you better clean it up?’
‘Oh later, later. And you tell me that nothing happened!’
‘Of course nothing happened. There was nothing
to
happen, was there? What a big handsome boy your son has grown into.’
‘Morgan, I am going to weave you a wreath of roses. May I pick some of the roses, Hilda, to weave a wreath for Morgan?’
‘Certainly, Simon, but you can’t pick them like that, you’ll need secateurs. You’ll find them in the kitchen drawer.’
‘I know, I know. Oh Axel, I’m terribly sorry, I haven’t given you a drink.’
‘Sit down, Morgan, for heaven’s sake, over here. Peter and Rupert are quite wrapped up in talk. What did you
say
to Tallis?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh stop it. You didn’t say anything about coming back to him?’
‘I said I’d come for the notebooks and I took the notebooks and I left.’
‘Was he upset?’
‘Not specially. I didn’t really notice.’
‘Would you like pink or white roses for your wreath, Morgan, or a mixture of the two?’
‘A mixture please, Simon.’
‘I think the pink and the white go well together, don’t you? Did you plant these ones, Hilda?’
‘No, they were here when we came.’
‘And are the white ones
really
called Little White Pet?’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘What a sweet name. I thought you’d invented it!’
‘It is pretty, isn’t it. Were
you
upset?’
‘Not specially.’
‘I don’t believe you. How did Tallis seem to you?’
‘Smaller.’
‘Let me fill your glass again, darling, before I start on your wreath.’
‘Thank you, Simon.’
‘You see, Peter, I’m getting a bit tired of writing evasive letters to your tutor.’
‘They’re called supervisors in Cambridge.’
‘All right, supervisor. You profess to despise the place but you think it worthwhile to correct me!’
‘I didn’t ask you to correspond with my supervisor. As far as I’m concerned the Cambridge business is over.’
‘But why? That’s what I can’t make out.’
‘All those values are false ones.’
‘What you need, my boy, is a little philosophical training. What do you mean by “those values” and “false”?’
‘All those values you’re writing that big book about.’
‘Come, come, be more precise. And let’s be more careful with our terminology, shall we? Propositions are true or false. Values are real or apparent. Now education is something which is genuinely valuable. Training your mind—’

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